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"Minor" Powers of the Napoleonic Era organized their economies and militaries according to one of five states :

1. Fully aligned with France.
2. Aligned with France but attempting to preserve a degree of control or possible neutrality.
3. Truely neutral
4. Aligned with Coalition but attempting to preserve a degree of independence or possible neutrality.
5. Fully aligned with Coalition.

What does all this mean?

Only states 2 through 4 need explanation, and since 2 is the obverse of 4, we need only explain two states.

In the case of a state aligned with either the Coalition or France but which was attempting to preserve a degree of neutrality, there were a number of dynamics. Typically, the reasons for preserving either actual neutrality or some degree of control while in fact aligned included the following :

1. wishing to avoid the exposure of their manpower or territory to the vagaries and generally deleterious effects of war.
2. wishing to preserve existing internal power structures that would be hostile to full alignment.
3. awareness that the power with whom they have decided against (Coalition or France) may not ultimately win the current conflict
4. Preparations to leave alignment or switch sides (this happened more frequently than is commonly known).
5. Economic profitability of remaining politically neutral while providing goods, services, sundries, to one or the other power.

In the case of a power wishing to remain fully neutral, nearly all the above conditions also obtain with only slight modification that should be obvious and therefore need not be explicitly stated.

Historical examples can be provided for each of the above reasons for states 2 through 4.

In game terms, while I know nothing about the game, I would suggest the following :

In cases of Full Alignment, allow full control of military and economic matters. Political attitudes and alignment of minors should remain a variable based on factors not within full control of the players, but capable of being influenced by them.

In cases of states 2 or 4, allow the player control only portion of the minor's military, or limit the use of the minor military to a portion of the map within the generalized interest of the controlling power, or both depending on the commitment of the minor. Economic policy would be less controlled than in cases of Full alignment.

Neutrality need no explantion, but would require low grade AI to manage the country as an independent power based on the vagaries of the strategic situation.

I should again stress that partial alignment with one side does not necessarily mean belligerent status. A country could remain politically neutral but provide men, arms, equipment and so forth, to one or the other belligerents. In rare cases a neutral that felt secure enough would deal with both belligerents simultaneously, or alternately (such as the United States!).

Just ideas for you, my beloved Matrix peeps. Do you feel the love?

dgaad, that all sounds good but my concern is how the minor AI is modeled. Just what conditions will have to exist for Bavaria to completely ally with France or, gasp, with the Coalition. I think this is key because there must be a realistic way to handle the diplomatic interaction between the minors and the two opposing factions or it all could end up a mess. If they can't craft an AI that is capable of handling these things then they should just say so and make the minors a much more straightforward issue. Hopefully a credible Minor diplomatic AI is possible and we can be treated to a rich political/diplomatic model, because this would really add depth to the game.

Upon further reflection :

Minor Country States

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Caranorn
I have mixed feelings about how to best treat minor nations.

While it is true that all nations (whether created by Napoleon or having existed before) had their own war aims and motivations, none were able to pursue those aims independently. That's what makes them minor countries. Bavaria might have had it's own interests to pursue, neverless it lost and gained territories during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars at the whim of the major powers. It's contribution to these wars is through it's aid (or lack thereof) to the main beligerents.

So I feel minors should only exist as diplomatic and economic factors prior to war entry. They should have no control over their armed forces, which would be either inactive, partially controlled (an expeditionary force, supply tracing, fortresses and garrisons) by a major or fully controlled (all armed forces and military structures controlled).

But again, the minors should exist as at least semi active diplomatic powers (that is not only the majors' diplomatic or military actions should lead them into the war (or out of it)).[QUOTE]


Right on. The key, as I see it, is to analyze the minors for their historical tendencies and choices and to build those in. Sweden and Denmark, for example, acted with a considerable amount of independence in their own identified interests (and were subject to odd, even bizarre, consequences of the machinations of major powers), while Bavaria, Poland, Northern Italy, "Holland," and others were pretty much lock-step followers of their major power allegiances (once these solidified).

Flexibility, therefore, is what I would like to see. Some loose cannons and some sycophants, methinks, with many freewheeling possibilities where appropriate. The interrelationships (alliance making and double-dealing among the more interesting happenstances) among the major powers should have considerable impact on the freedom with which minor powers can act. For example, if France and Austria are acting in concert, Milan ought to feel very constrained from fiddling around for fear of being squashed. Of course, when major powers with primary influence in a minor's sphere are at odds with each other, even the diplomats of petty nations know how to play one off against the other (until one or the other major power gets tired of it and grabs the flyswatter...).

Great potential in the diplomatic portion of the game, I think. I trust the designers not to make it over-simple or over-Byzantine.

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I will now proceed to entangle the entire area.

My view is that neutrals should have an active part if only in the diplomatic arena.

Both France, Britain and to a lesser extent the other major powers should be vieing with each other for the support and co-operation of these lesser powers. Britain with offers of financial aid and support, France with offers of liberation and/or expansion. Prussia, Russia and Austria will also be making overtures when possible but would have less to offer and in some cases will actually be seen as the oppressive power.

The extent that these negotiations succeed and the consequences of success or failure would depend upon the countries involved. The Netherlands for instance seek independence initially from Austria and later from Prussia and France.

Originally posted by Didz
My view is that neutrals should have an active part if only in the diplomatic arena.

Both France, Britian and to a lesser extent the other major powers should be vieing with each other for the support and co-operation of these lesser powers. Britian with offers of financial aid and support, France with offers of liberation and/or expansion. Prussia, Russia and Austria will also be making overtures when possible but would have less to offer and in some cases will actually be seen as the oppressive power.

The extent that these negotiations succeed and the consequences of success or failure would depend upon the countries involved. The Netherlands for instance seek indenpendance initially from Austria and later from Prussia and France.

Great post, Didz. Concur completely (except with the spelling of Britain, of course).

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I will now proceed to entangle the entire area

Thinking more about this my vision of how the minor powers should be handled would be somewhere along the following lines.

The rulers of all minor powers should have their own aims and objectives which may vary over time and according to the circumstances they find themselves in.

Each minor power will seek to acheive its aims by negotiation with one or more major powers.

The major powers may offer to assist the rulers of minor powers to acheive their own aims in return for a treaty or alliance. The extent to which they might be successful depending upon their ability to assist.

Thus the minor power will be in constant negotiation with the major powers resulting in a state similar to those described by Dgaad in his post.

In addition to this each state will have a public opinion status based upon the loyaltyof the population to the ruling house and their willingness to revolt or embrace republicanism should the French liberate them. Thus some states like Saxony, Bavaria and The Duchy of Warsaw and even Ireland and Scotland would fully embrace the support France whilst others like Hannover, Spain and Portugal would not be so supportive.

Thus Napoleon may seek to negotiate alliances with the current ruling house during diplomatic phases or if public opinion supports it he may replace the current rulers with his own puppet government.